What are Blockages?
Blockages are those weaknesses that hold you back from developing your potential because this weakness is so important that it holds you back, no matter how well you do in your strengths. And sometimes we are unaware of these blockages because they are blind spots.
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A good example is: you could be a genius thinker and be exceptionally talented at solving complicated problems. But if you are weak at communication then you will get extremely frustrated because you won’t be able to get your ideas across. The trouble is that the temptation is to blame other people for not paying attention. And it’s tempting to blame people for being too stupid to understand your complicated ideas.
While there may be some truth in this, the reality is that you will never be successful until you can work out how to get your ideas across. And a good communicator knows how to get people to pay attention and translate their message so that people can understand it. If you are unaware of the problem, you will blame others, be powerless to fix it and never reach your potential. If you become aware then you can accept the responsibility to change it and fix the problem. If you’re not aware of this blockage then you will probably avoid the blockage because you prefer working on what you’re good at.
A good example is: Neil Degrasse Tyson: He is not the greatest scientist but he is a good communicator. He freely admits that there are better scientists out there but they are less successful because they can’t engage their audience.
Exercise: How to spot your blockages
This can be tricky because they often hide in blind spots so use the guidance on blind spots.
Ask your boss (in your one on one meetings with your boss) or ask other people that know you.
Ask yourself, where does your work fall down. In the example of the genius with great ideas that no-one understands, the blockage isn’t the ideas themselves, it’s the process of communicating the ideas that is the blockage.
Next Steps: Self-Leadership: Developing Yourself
Overcoming blockages that are holding us back from reaching our potential is a vital self-development exercise. To be a better self-leader start with improving your self-leadership skills with self-leadership training. Self-Leadership: Developing Yourself is a quick, online training course that you can use to kick-start your self-development.
Comments:
Do you have any comments, questions or tips about working on your weaknesses as a part of your self leadership and self-development? Please share in the comments below.